While Chris Brown says he’d prefer to keep the details of his February assault on Rihanna private, the pop star says she’s speaking out to help others. In a new interview with MTV News Monday, Rihanna opened up on why she sat down for a candid interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, which aired on 20/20 last week.

“It was the biggest weight lifted off my chest,” she told MTV News. “If you watch the interview, you see it was a subject that I didn’t talk about for the eight months that I didn’t talk about it, so that was my first real time opening up. I had a lot of tension bottled up. So when I finally spoke about it, it felt really good. More importantly, it felt good that people got something positive out of it, because it’s devastating. It’s not fun to talk about or listen to, but there are a lot of women who are going through it, a lot of teenagers who are scared to talk about it. So I thought it was a good thing that I can be that voice for them and help them get out of that situation.”